Conventional winding units for winding strand materials, such as polypropylene and the like, have a plurality of stations comprising a strand supply, guide/traverse means, and a spindle-package arrangement for taking up the strand material. These units are conventionally maintained by a skilled operator who watches for filled packages on the spindles and, when a filled package is observed, the individual machine is stopped, the filled package removed, and then the machine is restarted to resume winding of the strand supply on an empty spindle. The winding unit can also be closed down as a complete unit for periodic removal of filled packages from each of the winding stations of the unit, followed by restarting of the winding operation, again as a complete unit. In each of these different modes of operation, the winding is more labor intensive than desired, and/or the winding units are not efficiently employed.
Automatic winding units have been proposed and described in the art to make the winding units less labor intensive. These automated units, however, are relatively complex and therefore costly and difficult to service and maintain. As a result, automated units have not reached any substantial commercial success.
Accordingly, there is a need for automatic strand winding units capable of servicing a winding operation suitable for, inter alia, taking up a plurality of strands, such as polypropylene and the like strands, wherein the doffing of a filled package from a spindle, rethreading, and re-starting of the winding operation is done automatically, and wherein the mechanism is simple in design, operation, and maintenance. The present invention provides such winding units.